V8s Get October Date For Bathurst
The Age
Monday April 10, 2000
ADELAIDE
The V8 supercar circus will reclaim its traditional Bathurst October race date next year as part of a major motor racing calender revamp.
And the revamp will not only see the cars pitted against the mountain in October, but move offshore, too.
Bathurst in October was as much a fixture on the motor racing calender, since the endurance race was moved there, as the celebration of the festive season, until recent times.
The biggest news is that the Ford versus Holden show is going international, with the first championship round in New Zealand.
Tony Cochrane, head of Avesco, the group that controls the touring car operation, announced yesterday that the V8s would return to Mount Panorama on the traditional NSW October long weekend in 2001 after an absence of four years.
The V8 supercars have run at Bathurst in mid-November since 1997, after the leading touring car teams split and went with Cochrane's company, Sports and Entertainment Ltd, after negotiating a new television deal with the Ten Network.
Channel Seven, which had held the TV rights for the touring car series, owned the traditional Bathurst date and refused to surrender it.
Seven instead backed an endurance race for the two-litre super touring cars.
However, this has failed to excite the interest of many race fans who follow the big name drivers - such as Craig Lowndes, Garth Tander and Paul Radisich - and their big banger V8 machines.
The future of the two-litre endurance race remains unclear.
The move to hold a race in NZ is the first part of Avesco's program to expand the V8 category offshore, with Asia as the next target.
The NZ race - for which a five-year contract has been signed - will take place at the Pukekohe circuit in Auckland next March.
Sports management and promotional group IMG will underwrite the cost, including all transport charges, for the 32-car grid to race across the Tasman.
``Over the past three years, V8 supercars have experienced explosive growth both locally and internationally and our move to NZ is driven by that demand. It opens up a whole new market for us," Cochrane said.
There has always been a marked interest in Australian endurance races in NZ. The NZ television stations have carried live coverage of Australian Series races for several years, and several current leading drivers - Radisich, dual Bathurst winners Greg Murphy and Steve Richards, and V8 new boy Craig Baird - come from across the Tasman.
The Kiwi race will replace the Indycar exhibition round, which is due to end after this year's event at the Gold Coast in October.
© 2000 The Age